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| Moving Forward / High Steel |
Jeff Barnaby’s Etlinisigu’niet (Bleed Down) boldly confronts ye olde docs that propagate images of Aboriginals as a roadblock to the creation of a “civilized” Canada. The film begins with a title card introducing “The Red Man in Canada” (how PC!) and then offers a series of scenes in which Aboriginals are trucked before a doctor, who examines them in a proud display of progress for the camera while inevitably dehumanizing them in the process. Barnaby reframes the images, too, by showing the greater devastation on land and the environment, and soon the proud doctor returns to treat new illness that the tribe hasn’t seen before. The image of the White Man treating the ills he created is powerful irony in this haunting film.
This play on an image of nationalism created through mass
culture gets another take in Michelle Latimer’s Nimmikaage (She
Dances for People). The film’s poetic juxtaposition plays three
images against one another to create layers of meaning: a woman dances in a
field, a crowd claps in a theatre, and a bird soars high in the sky. When the
first two shots play in succession, the dancing woman becomes like King Kong: a
novelty, a marvel, and a sideshow. Something personal becomes something public,
and the astute associative editing highlights the performance of culture that
creates an ‘us’/’them’ audience/freak show dynamic that still sells tickets in
the cheap seats today. The performer speaks back, however, as the beautiful
throat song by Tagaq finds a freeing complement in the image of the flying
bird, which grows from a lone sailor and to a powerful flock. It’s a buoyant and
lyrical work.
The power of the herd continues as Kent Monkman honours the
ghosts of the Residential Schools in Sisters and Brothers, which likens
the hunting of bison with the devastation on generations of Aboriginals through
the school system. The film features the familiar anthems of A Tribe Called Red
to inject a contemporary urgency to the film, but the final title card, which
bears a quote from the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Committee, makes a strong
plea to honour and remember the more than 6000 children who died in the
Residential Schools. The film cuts images of children being contained in the
schools with shots of the bison stampeding through the prairies. Monkman contrasts
containment with freedom, assimilation with annihilation, and structure with
nature as connections between people and the land are severed, but then tied
back together in the reconstruction of the film. This bold stroke likens a
chapter of Canadian history to large-scale game hunting.
Perhaps the most powerful of the four, however, is Caroline
Monnet’s Moving Forward. This
short uses the music of Tanya Tagaq as a driving force as it moves forward in
history and looks at the introduction of technology and industry to Aboriginal
communities. Much of the film samples footage from Don Owen’s doc High
Steel, which follows Mohawk steel workers high in the sky in the city.
Monnet cuts the images together at a rapid pace and moves from rural
communities to the city, from tradition to modernity, as one woman explores
life in the concrete jungle. The propulsive tempo of the film charts a walk
through progress as the characters enjoy traditional life in the beginning and
wander the urban streets of the 60s with trepidation. The traditional music
becomes more pronounced and involving as the film barrels towards the future
and the characters find themselves in a culture clash. The beat of the film is
very engaging and creates tension through the rhythm of sound and images,
asking how one moves forward when one feels as if one doesn’t fit in. The four
strong works of this installation ultimately confront the question of looking
at the past to move head, but the sense of agency the filmmakers bring to these
old works is a great leap forward.
Gazing Back, Looking Forward will be on display until September 27,
2015 at the Fort York
National Historic Site’s Visitor Centre.
